Carmel takes title at Conant invite
The Carmel Corsairs girls gymnastics team continued their hot start to the season by taking the title at the 31st annual Conant Invite on Saturday.
The Corsairs, led by senior Amber Mirski and sophomores Kristin Mirski and Jen Zeller (second on uneven bars, fifth in the all-around), bested Warren (second) and Lake Forest (third) despite too many falls for the liking of coach Sarah Doyle.
"Our three best girls fell on the beam," she said. "We're not missing any skills. (The mistakes) are just mental."
"Our strength is the vault," Amber Mirski said. "We had trouble with the beam. The beam is the key to winning. Next week will be much different."
Kristin Mirksi took her subpar beam performance and used it as motivation for her floor routine.
"I wanted to show everyone what I had," Kristin said. "I wanted to have fun."
The motivation paid off for Kristin as she won the floor exercise by beating overall champion Kim Gotlund.
Gotlund, a senior at Warren, took first in the vault and the beam and had a second-place finish behind Kristin Mirski on floor exercise.
"I didn't do well in my first meet," she said. "I was motivated to do well. I want to make it downstate with my team. We'll see how things go."
Warren coach Christy Worth is proud of the second-place finish and of her senior leader.
"It's a great place to be this part in the season," she said. "We made up for a lot of mistakes. Things are going in a positive way.
"Kim fell a lot in the first meet. She needs to be consistent. She has new skills, and only fell on the bars. She's doing well."
Lake Forest found its way to a third-place finish behind strong performances by Ofelia Carmichael (third overall) and Kylie Carlson (fourth overall).
"Everywhere we go, Carmel is there," coach Robin Straus said jokingly."The North Suburban Conference is stacked with Stevenson and Warren. This is a motivated group. The other teams push us."
Other top finishers were Glenbard West's Sarah Udelhofen (second on beam) and Missy Guzman (fourth on floor, 10th overall); Schaumburg's Ashley Miller (sixth overall), and Katie Vovolka (ninth on beam, sixth overall).
Glenbard West finished .65 points behind Lake Forest for third place.
Candy Cane Invite: Glenbard North proved to be the class of the field at Hersey, winning vault, beam and floor and finishing second on bars on the way to a team total of 144.775.
Naperville North won bars and finished second at 139.25, followed by St. Charles (138.98), Neuqua Valley (136.25), Hersey (135.2) and Buffalo Grove (129.175).
Individual winners included Fallon Faio of Vernon Hills on vault (9.325), Amber Fox of Glenbard North on beam (9.55) and floor (9.6), Linda Dunne of Buffalo Grove on vault (9.5) and Catherine Miller of Neuqua Valley on bars (9.4).